The present invention relates to direct sales activities of all types. Direct selling is the marketing and selling of products directly to consumers away from a fixed retail location. Modern direct selling includes sales made through a party plan, one-on-one demonstrations, and other personal contact arrangements, as well as internet sales. Thus, direct sales include direct personal presentation, product demonstration, and sales of products and services to consumers, usually in their homes or at their jobs. One form of direct selling includes multi-level marketing (MLM), which is a marketing strategy in which a sales force is compensated not only for product sales they personally generate, but also for the product sales of others they recruit, thereby creating a downstream of distributors and a hierarchy of multiple levels of compensation.
Moreover, there is a need to offer discounts to consumers of direct sales. Discounts are an integral part of retail strategies for many goods and services. Vendors rely upon discounts for a variety of reasons, such as to promote new and existing goods and services and to increase the sales of that particular item or service, or to increase the sales of the merchant's other goods and services. Further, consumers rely upon discounts as a way to reduce their costs. Discount techniques include providing coupons and rebates to potential customers, but these techniques have several disadvantages, such as a historically small percentage of consumer participation and fraud. Further, advertising and marketing associated with coupons and rebates can be expensive when done through the radio or television medium, and extremely ineffective when done through print advertisements. Regardless of the advertising medium, however, there is very little reason for the consumer to pass along the advertisement or coupon to others, so that a merchant must advertise or market the discount to each individual.
Another drawback of current discount techniques includes the risk taken by the vendor due to an inadequate sales volume. A vendor offers coupons or rebates in the hopes of securing future sales at full retail prices, repeat sales and ultimately an increase in overall sales. Ultimately, vendors cannot offer goods and services at a discount unless the vendor can ensure a minimum number of sales to justify the discount. But there is currently no system to mutually satisfy a consumer with a discount and the vendor with a minimum number of sales. There is also no current system that utilizes the strength of a social network to distribute information about the discounts, and create an incentive to distribute the information about the discount.
Yet another drawback of current group discount techniques involves the inability to adjust them after they have been deployed. A common problem occurs when a group discount offer is underway and comes close to, but fails to meet, the minimum number of sales required by the merchant. Even if the group discount fails to meet the minimum number of sales required by one sale, the group discount will not be triggered, thereby allowing the merchant to lose all of the sales that may have occurred. The inflexible nature of conventional group discounts result in a sales mechanism that is less usable and less desirable.
Therefore, what is needed is a system and method for improving the problems with the prior art, and more particularly for a more efficient method and system for facilitating direct sales activities by offering flexible group discounts.